Eurosmart confirms the forecast from last April of the total shipment of microcontroller-based Smart Secure Devices to more than 7 billion units in 2012. To put this number into perspective, it means close to 20 million people are receiving a secure and personalized device worldwide every day.

Eurosmart expects strong growth to continue in all major segments in 2013, bringing the 2013 total Smart Secure Devices forecast to nearly 7.7 billion units. The major growth drivers seen by Eurosmart are:

Telecom

• Continuous demand in developing markets
• M2M technology is expanding the smart security market
• Deployment of 4G with more than 50 commercial LTE networks globally, enabling feature rich IP services

Banking-Retail

• EMV migration is driving growth in Latin America and China and is confirmed in the U.S.
• Continued growth of dual interface devices – combining both contact and contactless technology – forecasted to representing 25% of 2013 shipments

Government ID-Health care

• Steady growth in National eID programs
• Rollout of several health care programs
• New countries are starting to adopt eDrivers licenses

NFC

• Eurosmart expects close to 100mu NFC secure elements to be shipped this year, and twice as many in 2013. Secure NFC devices include NFC enabled UICCs and embedded secure elements and other form factors of NFC enabled secure elements.
• Major handset manufacturers have started to include NFC in their smart phones
• Mobile network operators, banks and merchants have started to market secure NFC services
• Industry alliances and partnerships are rolling-out several projects worldwide